On Thursday, Apple released version 1.0 of its iPod Reset Utility, a free utility program designed to restore first and second generation iPod Shuffle units back to their factory settings.
The program is a 3.4 megabyte download and requires Mac OS X 10.3.9 or later to run. The software is written as a universal binary and functions natively on both PowerPC and Intel-based Macs.
If you’ve tried this program and had either a positive or negative experience, let us know.

From the PowerPage Department of Hopefully Useful Tips comes a guide to keeping your black MacBook clean from the guys over at macapper.com.
The black MacBook, despite being excessively cool and one of the best looking pieces of hardware Apple‘s released in recent years, the matte finish still tends to attract smudges and finger prints while the keys tend to build up oils from the skin.
Author Josh R. Holloway suggests using a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser, soft micro-fiber cloth, a can of compressed air, a little water and some patience.
Let us know what you think and if you’ve discovered a good way to keep either your black or white MacBook looking new, let us know.

While it may not be the first on your list of things to do, a day might come in the near future when you’ll have to put Microsoft‘s recently-released Windows Vista operating system on a partition of your Intel-based Mac (hell, why knock a feature that puts the Mac back in the office, makes it that much more versatile and helps Apple’s stock price?), despite any apprehension you might have about it.
The guys over at The Unofficial Apple Weblog have linked to a step-by-step guide on a Geocities page (written by someone identified only as “Nja247) as to how to install Windows Vista onto Boot Camp. The guide takes the reader through nearly every essential step in the process, including how to extract Vista’s critical drivers off its installation CD given that Apple’s current version of Boot Camp uses an auto-installer that fails to perform cleanly under Vista.
Despite the author’s wish to remain anonymous, this remains a good read and is worth a look.
If you have any war stories about getting Vista to run under Boot Camp, let us know.

A slew of rumors centering around an upcoming handset from Google may be coming to fruition as Isabel Aguilera, the company’s chief executive in Spain and Portugal has admitted a mobile product is in the works according to Engadget.
The product is described as a device that could provide features such as search, e-mail, Voice over Internet Protocol and mapping while speculation has emerged that Google may be working on its own hardware – as opposed to using Samsung, as past rumors had claimed.
A source close to the project cited on the High Contrast blog has stated that users can expect a “Blackberry-like, slick device” running Java on a C++ core with a Linux operating system. Google has been mentioned as leveraging its 2005 purchase of a relatively unknown company called Skia, which it felt was capable of creating a 2D engine on low-power devices.
Click the jump for the full story…

Toast, the long-standing CD and DVD burning application by Roxio, has been updated from version 8.0 to 8.0.1 as of Wednesday.
The update, which requires the user to log into the Roxio web site to download, offers the following bug fixes and improvements for the recently-released version 8.0 of the product:
-DivX encoder has been updated to version 6.4.
-Resolves a number of issues related to audio playback within Toast.
-Resolves an issue where save options are available while the encoding sheet is visible.
-Resolves a potential crash situation with multiple disc images mounted.
-Correct disc number is now always shown when reburning a failed disc in a spanned set.
-Some error messages have been updated to provide additional details.
-Resolves an issue which limited audio crossfade to 20 seconds.
-ToastAnywhere now correctly works with Audio projects.
-Cosmetic issue relating to fades icon has been corrected.
-Make changes to Effects will now prompt users to save project before exiting Toast.
-Media Browser preview will now stop automatically when saving a disc image
Improved accuracy of displayed recording speed.
-Resolves an issue where a disc is ejected after extracting audio tracks.
-Photo Discs created on Japanese language OS will now function properly in Windows.
-Helvetica font being disabled will no longer cause Toast to crash.
-Saved audio projects from Toast 7 will now open correctly.
-Menu title now appears correctly in preview for video projects.
-Resolves an issue related to closed captions not being available for selection in Toast Video Player.
-Write session option is now preserved correctly.
-Resolves a potential crash situation when selecting TiVo in the Media Browser.
-Index points are now always correctly burned in CD audio projects.
-Resolved an issue where Peak Regions or Split-Regions in some audio files are not recognized.
-Toast will now correctly display the date a TiVo show was recorded if no metadata is present.
-Cosmetic changes to mouse-over tooltip which appears in Media Browser for TiVo shows.
-Resolves issue related to using assets in the Roxio Converted Items folder.
-Audio CD length is now correctly updated with applying crossfade or trim effects.
-Resolves an issue related to opening some saved audio projects with effects applied.
-Toast now correctly displays when lead-in is being written for audio CDs.
-Resolves an issue where some tracks from CD Spin Doctor may not transfer correctly.
-Removing crossfades will no longer reset pause to 2 seconds if no gap is set.
-Resolves an issue related to burning an ISO 9660 format disc image.
-Improvements to estimated size calculation for video projects.
Toast 8 retails for US$99.99 and requires a G4, G5 or Intel-based Macintosh running Mac OS X 10.4.8 or later, QuickTime 7.1.3 or later and 300 megabytes of hard drive space to install. The program also urges the user to have at least 15 gigabytes of free drive space available when using Toast’s DVD backup compression features.
The program is a universal binary and runs natively on both PowerPC and Intel-based hardware.
If you’ve had either positive or negative experiences with the new version, let us know.